Centre sanctions appointment of 2,000 judges for fast-track courts

NEW DELHI: Prompted by nationwide outrage over the Delhi gang-rape incident, the law ministry has approved Rs 80 crore for recruitment of 2,000 more judges across the country for fast-track courts.

In a letter to state governments and high courts on January 9, the Centre asked them to increase the strength of subordinate judiciary from the current 18,000 to 20,000 with the additional judges to be deployed in fast-track courts.

The law ministry took Cabinet approval in the last week of December when India was rocked by mass protests over Delhi gang rape case that saw activists, lawyers, officials and jurists pointing to how victims were disadvantaged by long trials that allowed accused to influence witnesses.

Sources said the government was working on another proposal to allow states to use funds available for morning and evening courts to further increase the number of fast-track courts, a demand raised by various sections of society to expedite trial of pending cases, particularly those of sexual assault and heinous crimes.

The law ministry allowed setting up of morning and evening courts in 2010 but the scheme failed to take off with very few states availing the scheme leading to unused funds. Now, the government proposes to divert this allocation towards setting up of fast-track courts, sources said.

The Centre had discontinued the fast-track courts scheme in March 2011 after running it for over 11 years. However, several states like Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh decided to convert these courts into regular courts while some like West Bengal and Maharashtra continued to run more than 100 such courts without the central contribution.

During the central funding of fast-track courts, between 2000 and 2011, Bihar ran maximum number of such courts at 179 and this also resulted in reduction of a large number of pending cases in the state. Under the scheme, the central assistance was limited to Rs 4.80 lakh per court per annum for recurring expenditure and Rs 8.60 lakh non-recurring expenditure. Any other expenditure incurred by states in excess was to be borne by them.

Despite all these efforts, there are more than 3.20 crore pending cases in different courts of the country. Of this, at least 2.76 crore cases are pending in subordinate courts while 44 lakh are pending in various high courts, according to the law ministry.